


It's Grim Up North

by equestrianstatue



Category: Life on Mars (UK), Regeneration - Pat Barker
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1917.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Grim Up North

**Author's Note:**

> First posted in October 2007. Birthday gift for omnishambles. We were young and in love (with Sam Tyler)

Sam notices the cold, mostly. Completely idiotic, of course. There are so many other things he could be busy noticing, but he seems to settle on the weather, perhaps because it's a link; he's talked about the cold before. Manchester's not the Mediterranean, obviously, nobody'd tell you it was particularly warm there, but Sam finds himself looking back fondly on the occasional day when he'd go out without a jacket. There's sun up here, of course, but not quite as often, and it doesn't necessarily bring heat with it. Just weak, white-gold shafts of light across the lawns.

"Bit cold," says Sam, as conversationally as he can manage, to the man next to him on the bench.

Sam doesn't really know much about the etiquette of the time, but he'd hoped that however far back you went, the weather would always be a safe bet for a conversation starter.

The man gives him a somewhat withering look.

Maybe not, then. Sam sighs in a non-committal sort of way, and sits in silence for a little while, before getting up to leave. The man jerks his head around, and looks at him, and Sam feels a little bit awkward, but he nods politely. There is a long moment in which Sam is acutely aware of being sized up – for what, he doesn't know – before the man gives him a very curt nod, and looks away again.

* 

Sam's never been in therapy before. It's not nearly as disturbing as he imagined it would be, and is in fact probably the least disturbing aspect of this whole new world. Rivers is pleasant. They get on well, considering that he is gently and kindly probing Sam for information he genuinely does not have and recollections that do not belong to him.

Sam tried inventing experiences and nightmares, for a while, based on worn-out memories of doing the First World War at school, but Rivers would just nod and make this little throaty noise and take notes, and Sam could instantly tell that he didn't believe him. Since he never said that, though, Sam assumes that a lot of patients start off with lies, so at least it hasn't made him seem odd. (The oddball in the loony bin: is that possible?)

Now, they talk about Sam's childhood, which is going better, since Sam can tell stories that are true, and just leave out the bits about cars and Meccano and Slade. Fathers seem to be a big thing for Rivers, which is dandy, since Sam's got plenty of material on that one.

He does, apparently, have war neurosis. Hallucinations, voices, periods of hysteria: it all fits so terribly well. Rivers has a calming presence that makes Sam want to tell him the truth, to tell him about his real nightmares and memories, because Rivers emanates this glorious sense of wisdom, and Sam believes that he probably would be able to do something to make it better. Unfortunately, he doesn't think that claiming to be from eighty-nine years in the future is such an appropriate symptom, and he doesn't know if he'd be sent somewhere else if he did start claiming it. Not that he _likes_ it here particularly; he just doesn't dislike it as vehemently as he supposes he could have done.

*

"Yes," says a voice from somewhere at Sam's shoulder, quite unexpectedly, "you're right."

Sam assumes, at first, that he must be hearing half of somebody else's conversation, until he realises that there's nobody else around, since he's standing somewhere at the edge of a field, half-pretending there's not a hospital behind him. He turns around, and sees the man from the bench from days ago who didn't want to talk about the weather. Flat vowels and a sharp voice.

"What?" says Sam, eloquently, after a moment.

"It is cold," says the man.

"Yes," says Sam, because it still is. "Sam," he adds, because he's not used to this, yet, and it takes him a few seconds to realise, and say, "I mean, Tyler."

"Prior," says the man. He doesn't extend his hand, but he does quirk his eyebrow, which is probably good, Sam decides.

*

Sam has not been through what almost everybody else here has been through, which makes it understandably difficult for him to form bonds with anyone; and so it comes as something of a surprise when he and Prior get on relatively well. Perhaps it is because Prior, too, seems to avoid the presence of the other men, their forced make-do, chin-up mentality betrayed by slightly wild eyes. Sam doesn't want to talk about the past (or the future, or whatever), and neither does Prior, for reasons unknown, and so they take to each other's company.

They slip into an almost-routine, meeting on a bench overlooking the tennis courts in the afternoons. They watch the men running around, while Prior provides a sardonic commentary, gently and cruelly picking apart the intricacies of these unknown soldiers, and Sam becomes accustomed to it.

Not that it makes up for everything, obviously; they don't spend hours and hours together, and Sam still craves more social contact than he is able to acquire, too alienated from the whole experience to really talk to his roommate. A relatively regular dose of Prior and an hour with Rivers a few times a week, as helpful as they might be, prove not to be enough to keep Sam's spirits as high as they could possibly be in this place.

"How are you fitting in, incidentally?" Rivers asks him one day, near the end of a session.

"All right, I think," lies Sam, blankly.

"I see you've, ah, made Prior's acquaintance."

"Yes," says Sam, faintly relieved that he doesn't appear to need to defend his lack of other social engagements. "Someone to talk to."

"Hmm, yes," says Rivers. Sam almost thinks he looks a little – he doesn't know what, just a little less impassive than usual, for a second, but then Rivers brushes his hand down across his eyes and smiles and says that that's all well and good, and mentions something about golf, which Sam nods and pretends to understand.

That afternoon, on the bench, Manchester comes up somewhere or other in conversation; and although they seem to have this unspoken no-backstory pact, there is the sense of a shared background (false as Sam knows it is). Occasionally Prior's smile wanders across the line from mocking to genuine, Sam thinks, but maybe he's imagining that.

*

When it happens, Sam has a bizarre sense of resignation, of things slotting into place; he looks at Prior and realises, somehow, that this was always going to happen. Prior looks back at him, and gives him a funny sort of smile, and Sam also realises that Prior _already_ knew that this was always going to happen. Well, Sam thinks, at least one of us knows what's going on.

Prior removes most of his clothing, although in a strangely meticulous way, as if getting ready for bed – getting ready to actually sleep in one – and Sam watches, feeling absurdly like a judge on a panel. He thinks of holding up a little sign with a number on it, although he doesn't have one to hand, obviously, and he doesn't even know if panels of judges held up little signs with numbers on them at this point in time. He thinks he would give Prior an eight.

Then Prior sits down next to him on the bed, so Sam stops thinking about little signs with numbers on them, and instead thinks about Prior's hand on the back of his neck, and remembers how long it's been since he last felt human contact. Eighty-nine years, maybe. So when Prior leans over and runs a finger down from Sam's chin to his throat and begins to undo his tunic, Sam leans in, too, to kiss him, which is his instinctive reaction.

"Don't," says Prior, his voice unexpectedly detached, cold.

"Oh," says Sam, slightly surprised, and he can't really think of any reason to object, so he doesn't.

Prior fucks him on the uncomfortable bed in the room with the door that doesn't lock (which Sam points out, as best he can, but Prior says it's a bit late to think about that now, which is true). Still, Prior is evidently in practice, and Sam is lonely and confused and unhappy, mostly, so he forgets about the door and welcomes it; not that he thinks sex will make that an awful lot better in the long term, really, but it takes his mind off things.

Afterwards, Prior lies on his back and smokes, naked and unashamed, whilst Sam quietly gets dressed.

"What if someone comes in now?" Sam asks.

"I should think they'd walk out again rather quickly," smiles Prior.

* 

Sam rather assumes that their friendship – if you can call it that – would be affected in some way, even if not adversely, but he seems to be wrong. Prior doesn't act any differently around him: still cynical and smooth and either a little too distant or a little too close. They still meet in the same place, sometimes to talk, sometimes just to sit silently in the presence of somebody else in order to avoid other people starting conversations, Prior smoking languidly and Sam rubbing circles round his own knuckles.

"Tyler," says Rivers, startling Sam out of his reverie. "Prior," he adds, almost as an afterthought.

"Doctor Rivers," nods Prior, with a thin smile.

"Indeed. I was wondering, Tyler, if you wouldn't mind moving this evening's session to tomorrow morning? An unexpected matter has arisen in regards to another patient, and I hoped you would understand... emergency paperwork, as it were."

"No, that's fine," says Sam, "I, er, yes."

"Dear dear," murmurs Prior to his cigarette, twirling it in his fingers, "the trials of bureaucracy."

"You will be pleased to learn, Mr Prior, that your session has not been affected."

"Delighted, I'm sure."

"Very well," says Rivers, a little stiffly, and leaves, nodding to Sam.

Prior leans back and stretches his arms, fingers intertwining, looking as though he has accomplished something tricky and yet pleasurable, like licking up jam from the inside curve of a jar.

"Surprised you haven't tried it on with him," says Sam, not quite sure if he's joking or not.

"Of course I have," says Prior. "What do you take me for?"

*

Prior is boarded a month later: permanent home service. Sam knows this because Prior tells him, at length, where fucking Rivers can stick his fucking medical board, and then doesn't turn up by the tennis courts for three days.

When he does, he is as flippant as ever. He doesn't bring up the matter again until they are about to wander back inside for dinner, at which point he mentions that he is leaving in two weeks' time and has been placed at the Ministry of Munitions. Sam knows very little about the Ministry of Munitions, but from Prior's tone, he can only assume that being placed there is something akin to being given a job cleaning toilets; but maybe that's just Prior.


End file.
